


New Boy

by DragonflyPrince



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Normal High School, Dubious Consent, Everybody's got issues, Locker Room, M/M, Nipple Piercings, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Past Abuse, Showers, even slightly, more plot than i intended it to have honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:47:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22233544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonflyPrince/pseuds/DragonflyPrince
Summary: Expelled from his elite school, abandoned by the only protection he ever had, Lucius Malfoy still cannot believe that his father would stoop so low as to send him to a state school, even for a few months. All the same, in the horror of a rundown comprehensive, there is foster kid and rugby champion, Tom Riddle, who might be just the person to offer Lucius the protection he so desperately needs - for a price.
Relationships: Lucius Malfoy/Tom Riddle
Kudos: 50





	New Boy

**Author's Note:**

> This is unedited. It has zero relationship to canon. The characterisation doesn't even glance in the direction of canon. The deeply troubling implications of everybody's backstory remain unaddressed. Just go with it.

It was all part of the punishment. He had to remember that. It wouldn’t be forever – his father simply couldn’t bear the shame. Within a few weeks, or a few months, he would be out of there. Admittedly, the alternatives weren’t a vast improvement but at least they weren’t Sloedon Comprehensive.

It was insane, actually insane. Alright, so he’d been expelled. That happened to people sometimes. It wasn’t like it was his fault. But his father had lost his temper like Lucius had never seen him lose it before, and suddenly the world wasn’t the same place that it had been.

State school. The idea was insane. He’d been on the waiting list for Harrow since he was born. The family had connections everywhere. Maybe he hadn’t been expecting Eton as the replacement but what about Winchester? He’d have quite liked Winchester. Or Westminster? He already had friends at Westminster.

There was talk of sending him abroad. That didn’t appeal in a great many senses – being so far from his mother, so far from his home, so far from everything that gave him power – but, on the other hand, he would have been fully out of the reach of his father. It wouldn’t have been easy to forgo the first aspects of the family, to not be able to immediately seek support from the great House of Malfoy, but maybe that would have been alright. Maybe he would have found his feet, discovered the true Lucius hiding in his father’s shadow.

That was still on the cards. His parents were “looking at options”. And rather than doing the sensible thing and getting a tutor for him in the meantime, they had for some reason decided to send him to Sloedon. It was a punishment – a punishment so severe that it was punishing them as well. What kind of masochistic fuckery was their parenting method?

Lucius looked up at the sheer unrivalled ugliness of his temporary school. It was sixties build – all squares, concrete, and dead-eyed windows. A few trees straggled around the place amongst litter-choked flowerbeds. Buses squealed and shrieked in the bays out front, a river of blue-clad students pouring off them, slinging rucksacks high on their shoulders, shouting and laughing. A group of boys on bicycles raced past him, catcalling a couple of passing girls.

It was alien. Not the chatter and busyness of the start of school but everything about the students themselves. There were girls in those little tartan skirts they called a uniform, hiked up dangerously high. Lucius had never even been to a co-ed school before. It was humiliating to say that they frightened him but it was true.

And then there were the boys, all untidy in their misshapen blazers, riding bicycles or smoking openly by the gates. Who did that? Smoking was something you did secretly, tucked around the back, where nobody could find you. Who was letting this happen? And their hair was madness, all gelled spikes or severe undercuts, tousled curls, long hair, short hair – he definitely saw somebody with a ponytail. That would never been allowed at Harrow.

Lucius had never felt more out of place in his life, with his hair neatly cropped and slicked back, his blazer perfectly tailored, everything exactly as it should be. Nobody even glanced at him as they rushed past, screaming for friends, effing and blinding with no apparent fear of consequences, acting like discipline was a foreign concept.

They weren’t important. How could they be? Lucius had to find the office, sign himself in, and get on with surviving. After all, however strange it all was, however agonisingly humiliating his presence there, it could not be worse than Harrow.

*

Tom was tired. He was usually tired – sleep was something of a privilege in the Home when at least three children were plagued by night terrors and bed-wetting, and everybody else thought two in the morning was the perfect time to play their latest genius prank. Besides, there had been homework to get done and Tom was nothing if not hard-working. Sloedon was not going to have him forever. Sooner or later, he would escape – and he needed the little pieces of paper to do it.

So he was hardly looking forward to PE when it rolled around. Tom might be good at it, might in fact be the star of that shivering, shuddering little rugby team that made such dismal attempts to take on schools with better funds, but there was only so much running around in the thin, cold drizzle that he could take. He slouched his way into the changing rooms and fobbed off all of Rabby’s attempts to engage him in conversation. He really couldn’t bring himself to care about the upcoming party at Megan’s place.

“Hey! Hey, Eton!”

Tom hardly looked up from his phone, slumped on the bench with Rabby elbowing him in the ear on one side and Priesty jostling him from the other. The changing room wasn’t even big enough for half that number of boys. They filled every corner, an optical illusion, the space between each boy turning out to be another boy.

“What happened? Your Daddy inside?”

It was Ben’s voice, because of course it was. If you ever wanted to find an irredeemable arsehole, you could do no better than Ben Whitley.

“Hey, talk to me, Eton! Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude not to answer?”

Tom finally bothered to look over. In a corner, not getting changed, focused intently on his phone, was a slim, blonde boy he had never seen before. The kid was pretty – oh, hell, he was pretty. He was also thoroughly out of place. Had nobody told him it wasn’t the 1950s anymore? What was with the haircut?

“Don’t fuck with me, Eton!”

The boy finally looked up. When he spoke, his voice was crisp and clear, plummy as pudding. It was more than RP, more than Queen’s English – this voice could have looked down on the monarchy as nouveau riche.

“My name is Lucius. I didn’t even go to Eton.”

“Yeah, right, fucking fag,” Ben grumbled. “Where’d you get off ignoring me? You think you’re better than me, dickhead?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Lucius answered calmly. “Did you really call me a fag? It’s the 2010s, you know.”

Tom almost smiled. The kid wasn’t a complete wet blanket. That was something.

“You little shit!” Ben almost laughed. “You think you’re something? You’re at fucking Sloedon, Eton! You’re a fucking loser!”

Lucius ignored that entirely, returning to his phone. It was a sleek little device. Tom didn’t even have to look at it to know it was the latest model. His grip tightened spasmodically on the battered old thing in his hand. Ben might be a pillock but nobody liked rich bastards.

Ben snatched the phone from Lucius’s hand before the boy could protest and threw it. It hit the wall with a sharp crack and fell to the floor. There was suddenly dead silence in the changing room. Lucius got slowly to his feet. The space around him cleared impossibly. People somehow find a way, even when jammed shoulder to shoulder, to make an arena for a fight.

“What did you just do?” Lucius demanded. “Are you planning on paying for that?”

“Go buy another one,” Ben jeered. “Daddy got any money left? What did he do, get caught feeling up a little boy?”

Lucius snarled. It was a good look on him. Tom slipped closer, weaving his way through the crowd. People moved out of the way for him – they always did.

“Leave my family out of this.”

“Or what? Gonna fight me? Come on, Eton! Let’s see what you’ve got! I’ll fucking kill you.”

“You think you frighten me?” Lucius laughed, a mad sound. “You think you’re tough? I was at _Harrow_ , arsehole! What are you? Some little punk from a bankrupt suburb? What do you think you’re going to do to me? Last time someone wanted to mess with me, they got me _expelled_. They got my mum _fired_. And they were being merciful because they could have done far, far worse. What’s your plan? Beat me up? Grow up.”

Ben swung for a punch. Lucius moved faster than Tom could have predicted, twisted Ben’s arm with a sharp crack, sent him sprawling.

“Oh, yes, very clever,” he spat. “Show me in your eyes exactly what you’re going to do! God, get it together, people! I thought delinquents knew how to fight!”

Tom watched in reluctant admiration as Lucius snatched Cam’s fist straight out of the air when he tried to come in for a surprise attack, as he brought a sharp kick up into Smithy’s groin, as he sent Other Ben flying. The crowd of watching boys were cheering indiscriminately now, egging them on.

“Come on then,” Lucius growled, and Tom felt a strange yet familiar flutter in his stomach. “Hurt me. I dare you.”

Oh god, no. The pretty little bastard was looking feral, all bared teeth and mussed hair. There was sweat on his brow, his clothing slipped sideways, his eyes wild. Tom wanted to do terrible things to him. What bad timing was this?

Ben was back on his feet now and he threw himself at Lucius. The kid’s head slammed back against the pegs with a terrifying crack, then he buckled like a gymnast and flung Ben away from him. The cheers rose to a fever pitch. Tom decided enough was enough.

“Alright!” he stepped forward sharply. “Enough! You’re done here!

Cam was struggling up, spitting fury, but Tom settled him with a glare.

“Let me at the bastard!” Ben heaved himself up again.

“Lay off him!” Tom snapped, walking firmly into the tiny arena the crowd had built. “Fight’s over. That includes you, Luke.”

Lucius was breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling. He looked like he might be about to have a fit. His eyes flashed pure murder.

“Tom –” Ben began to protest.

“You’ve already lost,” Tom cut him short. “Get over it.”

For a moment it looked as though Ben would turn on him, then he sagged and turned away with only one last insult muttered so low under his breath that Tom couldn’t make out what it was. He let it go. His authority over his classmates was too delicate a balance to pick every fight that came along.

Lucius turned on his heel and made to leave the room. The crowds parted before his look of blind fury. Tom stepped smartly in front of him, stopping him short.

“You out of your mind, kid? On your first day?” He shook his head, trying not to let admiration show through. “Got a question for you, Luke. Why the hell were your old classmates so set on getting you expelled?”

For a moment, he thought Lucius might spit in his face. Instead the boy shouldered his way past and stormed out of the changing rooms. Silence hung over the crowd, tense and jubilant.

“Right, fuck off, all of you. Get dressed.”

The crowd dispersed. Tom elbowed his way through to pick up the kid’s phone. Trust him to get himself mixed up in the affairs of some rich brat. Next thing he knew, Lucius would be looking to him for protection.

*

They gave him detention for not attending PE. Lucius had been in trouble plenty of times before but this was a new one. Skiving usually got him nothing worse than a glare and a sharp comment, especially if it was just the once. When things got unignorable, he was given lines. Detention at Sloedon apparently did not involve lines. It involved laps.

He ran in circles around the muddy field, puddle-water splashing up the backs of his legs, head down, sweat pouring from his brow. Some games master stood under the shelter of an umbrella with a stopwatch, occasionally grunting at him as he passed. Lucius kept on running, even as his ribs started to ache and his lungs to flutter. He wasn’t much of a sportsman; this was not his scene.

At last, the teacher muttered his acquiescence and sent Lucius off to get changed and go home, with a few pointed words about the importance of obedience, or the necessity of good clean exercise, or some other schoolroom shit.

Lucius squelched back to the changing rooms, picking his way over the sodden ground. He had been at Sloedon three days now and he hated it like he had never hated Harrow. At least Harrow had had redeeming features in amongst the horror. Here, he was like a freak on show.

He had been briefly excited when three girls had approached him in class shortly after the changing room incident. He didn’t have much experience with girls. It had started out well, with them asking him whether he’d gotten into a fight, but it turned out they wanted to know whether he was friends with some guy. It took Lucius a while to even work out that they were talking about whoever that arsehole was who broke up the fight. Their interest in him was a solid zero.

Safe in the changing rooms, he shivered out the worst of the cold and rubbed roughly at his hands, chafing them out of their numbness. It hadn’t been raining hard, just that same thin dampness that soaks you to the bone without trying, like the weather is frozen in time and you’re running through curtains of suspended droplets. He had to peel his clothes off. It felt as though he took a layer of skin with them. His flesh was clammy, so numb he could barely feel it when he pinched his arms.

He was bent over, struggling to tug his muddy socks from his icy feet, when he heard a voice behind him.

“What are you doing here, Luke?”

It was a steady confident drawl but Lucius couldn’t place it until he had spun around, hopping slightly as he finally got his sock off and straightened up. It was the boy who had broken up the fight – Tom? Was that what they called him?

“My name is Lucius,” he snapped.

“Jesus, take a gift when it’s offered to you, kid. Nobody’s going to take you seriously if you go around as Lucius…” Tom’s voice trailed off. “Whoa.”

Lucius stared at him blankly. It was only when Tom’s eyes began to move, tracing up his thin legs, moving over his stomach, that it finally clicked. He was only in his briefs – and this was not a boarding school. These students weren’t used to seeing each other undressed. Heat rose suddenly to his cheeks and he moved to cover himself.

“What’s that, Lukey?” Tom’s voice was suddenly sharp. “Let me see.”

Lucius’s train of thought was momentarily derailed, then resumed its course down a new, terrified track. Oh god, the piercing. Tom had seen the piercing. He hadn’t remembered to cover it up. There he was, in his underwear, in the slightly slimy changing room of a shitty comprehensive school, and he had a nipple piercing proudly on display. No wonder Tom’s eyes were wide with shock.

“It’s nothing,” Lucius said hastily. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, I wasn’t _worrying_ ,” Tom said, approaching swiftly.

He pulled away Lucius’s hands when he went to cover himself and held them firmly out of the way. His eyes fixed on the little bar that went straight through Lucius’s left nipple. He gazed at it for a long time and Lucius could actually see his pupils dilate.

“Well, well, Lukey,” he drawled. “Looks like you’re not as uptight as you claim.”

“It’s nothing.” Lucius did his best to pull away. “It’s…it’s temporary.”

Tom actually laughed. “Like hell it is. When did you get that done?”

He had been fourteen, in the kitchen of somebody’s holiday house. He still didn’t know how they had persuaded an actual professional to come there just to pierce a kid’s nipple – large amounts of money probably had something to do with it. But now he was thinking about the day he had got it done, and Orion’s grin, and the way he had tugged it gently even as Lucius cried out with the fresh tenderness of it and –

“It’s none of your business,” he said hastily.

“You’re blushing, Lukey.”

“Stop calling me that. It’s Lucius.”

“You must have been pretty young. Who did it for you?”

“Just leave me alone.”

“Was it your idea?”

“Look –” Lucius broke off with a gasp as Tom rolled the ball of the bar between his fingers. He felt a familiar tightening in his stomach.

“Who wanted to play with you?” Tom murmured, and the sound went straight to Lucius’s groin.

Oh god, but Tom was hot. Really, objectively hot, in a rough sort of way, with that strong jawline and those deep eyes, now dark in a way that was both familiar and strange. Now Orion, Orion had been hot too, but that had been practiced, like something he had made an effort at, all polished and clean. Tom was different, slightly crude almost, unfinished. It was like the difference between well-cut paste and a real diamond fresh from the ground.

“Look, it’s nothing to do with you ah!” Lucius’s head tipped back of his own accord as Tom tugged ever so slightly. “It’s not important.”

“It’s the most important thing I’ve seen in ages,” Tom retorted. “And I can’t help noticing you’re not actually trying to stop me. Which means either you’re into it…or you’ve been very well trained. I wonder which?”

_Both,_ Lucius thought frantically, as Tom tugged again and he was forced to rise onto his tiptoes, following the pull. It seemed to reach straight down to his cock. He could feel himself getting harder, and that look on Tom’s face wasn’t helping. He looked _fascinated_. Orion never looked like that. He had never looked like he was into Lucius, not just Lucius’s body.

_Get out now,_ some last bastion of rationality warned from the back of Lucius’s mind. _Run far, far away._

“Answer me, Lukey,” Tom murmured, low and dark. “Which is it?”

“Both – fuck!”

Tom squeezed the nipple tightly between his fingers. “Oh, so you can swear? Funny how much filthier it sounds from your mouth.”

“Please,” Lucius begged. “This is a really bad idea, I…ah, wait, I just…”

Tom released his nipple and stood waiting with a great performance of polite enquiry. His other hand – large, calloused at the fingers – still gripped Lucius’s tightly, keeping them away, keeping him restrained.

“You’re shaking,” he remarked.

“Shivering,” Lucius snapped. “I’m _cold_.”

Tom leaned in and kissed him. It was so sudden that Lucius had no time to even close his mouth. In a second, Tom was there, nipping at his lower lip, caressing tongue to tongue, tilting his head further and further back till his shoulders fell against the wall and it was all he could do to keep himself upright. Tom kissed like he had all the time in the world, like there was no rush, like all that mattered was slowly unpicking every stitch of Lucius’s self-restraint, one skilful flick of his tongue at a time.

Heat rose through Lucius in a desperate flush. It rushed to his cheeks, pooled in his groin. He was getting hard already. Damn the life that had made him like this. Damn Tom for being so good with his mouth.

At last, Tom pulled back and gently ran his thumb along Lucius’s kiss-plump lower lip. They were close enough to be breathing one another’s breath. His grip on Lucius’s wrists tightened.

“Warmer?” His voice rasped like a chronic smoker’s, taut with something unspoken.

“This is a really bad idea,” Lucius managed. “Catastrophic.”

_Please,_ he thought, deep down inside, like a cry of pain. _Orion would have me bent over something by now. Please, just do it. Take it. What are you waiting for?_

“You know what I think?” Tom leaned in to whisper in Lucius’s ear. The shudder of his breath rippled all the way down Lucius’s spine. “I think you like being taken advantage of, Lukey. I think you’ve got serious issues.”

Lucius laughed, a touch hysterically, which transformed into a moan as Tom’s tongue flickered into the hollow of his ear and out again. “You could – you could say – ah –”

“Now, what I think, Lukey, is that you’ve been taken advantage of before. I’ve heard rumours about posh schools like yours. Seems to me some kids end up giving favours, for protection. The schoolboy equivalent of a prison bitch.”

He nipped at Lucius’s ear and the boy buckled, actually buckled at the knees. This was torture. He was hard now, hard and straining against his briefs. The worst part was, Tom knew. He knew that he knew, and he was ignoring it completely.

“Was that it? Some, ah, upperclassman liked to bend you over and in return he kept the bullies away? You’d put your pretty mouth round his cock and he’d keep you out of trouble?”

Lucius whimpered. Oh god, how terrible it sounded in this place, with its different rules. How straightforward it had seemed when Orion had first pushed him to his knees, first slipped his thin fingers into his mouth and tested the gag of his throat.

“Did he make you get the piercing? Did he like to play with it? How many times did he tug on it through your shirt, get you hard and panting in class? Practically Pavlovian, that piercing. One tug and you’re weak.”

Damn it, why did he have to guess? Orion used to love to play with it. He’d catch Lucius in a corridor and give it a pull, roll it between his fingers, then send him on his way just as Lucius started to heat up, knees trembling. He’d find himself sitting in English class half-hard, frantic with it, and when class was over, Orion would find him and Lucius would be just desperate, ready to do anything for him….

“Orion,” he mumbled, and Tom’s roving mouth stilled. “His name was Orion.”

“Ah.” Tom pulled back a little, just enough to kiss him again, to suck on his lower lip until Lucius could have wept. “Now why do I think he’s got something to do with why you were expelled?”

That was too much for Lucius to take. He couldn’t have this conversation now, not when he was leaking pre-cum into his briefs and this boy, this incredible, terrible boy, was sucking like that on the space of his neck Orion used to bite, sucking like he was trying to pull some nutrients from it.

Lucius’s hips bucked almost involuntarily, brushing against Tom’s thigh. He whined at the friction. Tom stilled against him for a moment and, oh god, Tom was hard too. Lucius moved again and whimpered pitifully, let his head loll, exposing his throat. He was begging the only way he knew how, total submission, leaving himself open.

“Fuck,” Tom groaned. “Ah, fuck, this is wrong.”

But he moved anyway, grinding his hips against Lucius’s. The friction was almost worse than the stillness. Lucius jerked against him, shuddered into him, pressing firmer. Tom held him off, held him back, kept everything so slow that it made Lucius want to scream with frustration.

“Let me,” he mumbled, as their jaws, lips, teeth, bumped together. “Let me.”

He wriggled in Tom’s grip, tried to drop to his knees. Tom held him up firmly, practically dragged him to his feet.

“None of that,” he rasped. “Not yet.”

His free hand twisted the bar in Lucius’s nipple till he moaned. It was almost too much, overwhelming. He felt as though every nerve in his body had been hit by an electric current. Tom’s hand wandered lower, brushed the plane of his stomach, slipped down over the front of his briefs. Lucius thrust into his hand without even realising it, seeking attention. Tom laughed softly and kissed him, tongue sliding in even as his hand began to work, agonisingly slow, rubbing Lucius’s straining cock through the soaked fabric of his briefs.

“That’s it,” Tom whispered as Lucius trembled against him, clutched at his hair, his shoulders, his back. “That’s it.”

He pulled the fabric away and took Lucius’s bare cock in his hands. Lucius nearly came there and then. It had been so _long_. He’d forgotten how good it felt to be held like this, so vulnerable, so controlled. Had it ever felt this good before?

“That’s right,” Tom murmured, sliding kisses along his jaw. “Good boy.”

His thumb circled the head in slow, dragging strokes and Lucius bit down hard on his lip to keep from crying out. A finger traced down the underside, hooked around his balls, ran back the other way. Tom laughed breathlessly, a little desperately himself, and gripped hard. Lucius’s head fell forward and he bit hard into Tom’s shoulder, a reflex, to keep from screaming.

Tom let out a muffled shout and began to move, hard motions, on the edge of pain, rhythmic as a drumbeat. Lucius thrust into them, pushed deeper, kissed and licked and bit at Tom’s shoulder, his neck, the muscle that joined the two in an exaggerated triangle. The pleasure was building, blue-hot, coiling in his stomach, crushing every organ, reducing him to nothing but that, nothing but a cock thrusting, pumping, desperately searching inside Tom’s fist.

“I –” Words were beyond him. “Pl – ah –”

“That’s right,” Tom growled out, and kissed him.

It was a deep, possessive kiss, more impact than skill, and it undid Lucius completely. His world turned white, turned red, flared and flashed and died. He might have passed out. There were no thoughts in his brain, not a single one, even as he let his head loll against Tom’s shoulder, even as Tom stroked him steadily through the last shudders of orgasm, even as his knees gave out and he fell limply against the other boy, collapsed into him gracelessly as an old man.

“Easy,” Tom soothed, lowering him gently to the uncomfortable wooden slats of the bench. “Easy now. That’s it.”

*

Tom stared down at the boy shaking and trembling beneath him on the bench. Oh, he’d really fucked up this time. This was deeply messed up. Somebody had gone to the trouble of giving this kid a boatload of issues and making a perfect little toy of him; it was not Tom’s place to take advantage of that.

On the other hand, he was hard as hell within his uniform trousers and the wreckage of Luke was _beautiful_. That slender white body cried out to be touched. That sweet little cock had seemed made for his hand. The way he blushed so readily, lips swelled red so easily, skin pinked to the bite so perfectly, as if everything he felt was written on the surface. And that piercing…Tom had never seen a more open invitation to sin.

He reached involuntarily for his cock, rubbing roughly at it through the fabric. He made to undo his trousers and suddenly Luke’s hands were there, trembling and fumbling, pushing him out of the way. The boy’s eyes were blown out, unfocused, but there was something intent in his movements.

“You don’t have to,” Tom managed, clinging to a thin shred of decency flapping in his soul like a storm-battered flag. “You don’t – oh!”

Luke dragged his cock out, stroked it expertly, moulded his hands around Tom’s balls as if he had been trained for it. Had he? Not a helpful thought. Tom pushed it aside and let his legs fall further open, standing with his trousers round his knees. Luke sat more upright on the bench, leaned in, lapped at the tip. An unholy sound was dragged from Tom’s lips. Then, with no warning, Luke swallowed his cock.

“Fuck!” Tom cried out, bracing both hands against the row of pegs. “God!”

Luke moved with new confidence, pressing deeper, burying his nose in the dark twists of pubic hair, pulling back, his tongue coiling and soothing. Shameless noises came from him, little moans and whimpers, the slurping and wet slapping of his hollowed cheeks. Tom had never seen anything like it. The boy hadn’t even prepared, hadn’t even worked his way up to it. Luke buried Tom’s cock as deeply down his throat as he could and Tom thrust involuntarily, his whole body shuddering with need.

Luke choked and spluttered but he did not pull away, even as tears welled in his eyes and began to pour down his cheeks. He kept working, earnest and urgent. Tom balanced himself on one leaning arm and brought his other hand down to curl into that damp blonde hair, twist it up into tangles and grip tight. It was obscene, the picture the boy made: pink lips stretched wide, eyes dark and watery, tears streaming down his hollow cheeks. Tom’s cock vanished again and again into the tight heat of his little mouth.

“Yes,” Tom breathed as his knees started to shake. “God, yes, Lukey! Like that. Just keep doing that.”

His hips thrust shallowly again and again, uncontrollable. The tension mounted and Tom barely had time to think. Everything was stretched tight, taut, unbearable tension. Luke’s tongue did terrible things, and Tom was fucking his throat, and everything seemed to be burning, and god the boy was beautiful, and Tom was there thrusting into that little whore mouth and –

He came all at once, head thrown back, toes curling, a wild moan escaping his mouth. His hand fisted tighter in Luke’s hair, holding him steady, pouring his cum down the boy’s throat. Luke took it calmly, sucked and swallowed, milking him dry, hands coming up to sooth on Tom’s hips, encourage him to give up everything.

When there was nothing else to give, Luke fell back, lips sliding off with a vulgar pop, and he dropped in a boneless heap on the bench, a rivulet of cum and saliva running from the corner of his mouth. Tom sank uselessly onto the bench, feeling the orgasm fizzing like champagne in his blood, lighting him up with something unfamiliar. He leant against the wall and trembled like a virgin.

“C’m ‘ere,” he managed hoarsely.

Luke did not respond, his breathing fast and shallow, gazing startle-eyed up at the ceiling. Tom reached out and grabbed him, hauled him like a sack up into his arms. He heaved the boy into his lap and held him, squeezed him, crushed him. He buried his face into the boy’s hair and shook.

*

Lucius felt blissfully peaceful. He had done something useful. The only skill he had – that was what Orion used to tell him. But he had put it to good use. His mouth tasted of Tom as he let himself be crushed, let himself be held and grounded and forced into here-and-now, all that worry and stress and loneliness far, far away. Orion had done this on rare occasions, held him and cradled him and told him everything would be okay. Lucius squished his face into Tom’s shoulder, folded himself away, as if he could seep into the other boy’s skin and be swallowed up for good.

“There now,” Tom muttered shakily, his trembling fingers tracing burning patterns down Lucius’s back. “You’re okay. You’re alright.”

It was some minutes before Tom pushed Lucius away, sitting him down gently on the bench beside him. Lucius took the hint – he stood up, legs weak and shaky as a newborn foal.

“I, um,” he stammered, his voice rasping uncomfortable through his aching throat. “Thank you. I should be going.”

“Thank you?” Tom stared at him incredulously. “Did you just say thank you?”

“Yes?” This was all getting too much, too confusing. “Sorry. I’m….”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Tom interrupted. “Fuck, I used you like that and you think you need to thank me?”

Orion would have just said ‘you’re welcome’ and be done with it. Lucius really needed things to be simple right now.

“What did he do to you?” Tom demanded. “This Orion guy.”

Lucius winced. “Nothing. He was…it’s not important. I’m sure you’re busy. You can go now.”

“I can go?” Tom got sharply to his feet. “Like hell I can.”

His trousers were round his ankles and his cock still bobbing free, half-hard. Lucius’s eyes were drawn to it as if magnetically. He felt the longing start to pool in his stomach again.

“You need a shower,” Tom said briskly. “No way you can go home looking like that. You stink of sex. Do you have a towel?”

Lucius had a towel. He also had no strength with which to protest. He let Tom lead him, no longer seductive, with all the grim efficiency of a nurse, to the two tiny cubicles tucked at the back of the changing rooms where boys competed for the privilege of actually being clean after sports. Tom pushed him inside of one and, to Lucius’s honest surprise, followed after.

Alright, so he had done this before. Orion had made him wash him down after sex sometimes, first with his tongue and then again properly. All the same, it was different in the airy wet-room of Orion’s family’s mansion to this grim little hole with its dim light and conspicuous mould in the corners.

“Cold or hot?” Tom asked, before glancing at him. “Probably fairly cold considering.”

He turned the water on and grabbed a sponge from Lucius’s little bag. He scoffed at it, as if he’d never seen a washbag before, but pushed Lucius firmly under the guttering spout of the shower. He shivered as the cold water hit his skin, erasing the prickling hot flush that had had hold of him ever since that first kiss.

“Stay still,” Tom ordered.

He began to sponge Lucius’s face, firmly but gently erasing the trails drying around his mouth. He moved down steadily and Lucius was too overwhelmed to protest, even as Tom began to scrub Lucius’s own cum from his belly and thighs. He could not help but groan, though, as the sponge dragged over his overstimulated cock.

“I know,” Tom murmured. “I’m sorry. It won’t be long.”

Once he had Lucius suitably clean, he turned him around – and that was when this whole strange scenario soured. Tom hissed an intake of breath and his hands grabbed sharply at Lucius’s biceps. Lucius stayed very still, barely breathing, as the dread pooled in his stomach.

“What the hell is this, Lukey?”

Tom had seen the scars. He’d forgotten all about them for a few blissful minutes there, all tangled up and back in the familiar territory of service. They still chequer-boarded his back, criss-crossing, mazing. Most of them were faded now, white stripes against white flesh, but the pink and red of a few of the deeper cuts showed through.

“Didn’t I tell you they beat me up at my old school?” Lucius managed, with a desperate attempt to sound casual.

“This isn’t beating you up, kid, this is just straight-up beating you. Did the teachers _know_ about this?”

“Didn’t think you’d advocate for sneaking to a teacher.”

“Christ, Luke, this isn’t some little scrap in the changing rooms. This is all-out torture. Do your parents know?”

“Yes.”

“Have they done anything?”

Lucius closed his eyes. He didn’t want to have this conversation. He couldn’t have this conversation. It was too much, too complicated. The words weren’t there, especially not for this strange and awful boy. Yes, that was the word, awful – awful in the way Milton had used it. And now Tom was speaking almost as if he cared. It was too much.

“Here’s what I think happened,” Tom said, and his voice was dangerously even. “I think the bastard who was abusing you left school. Went off to university or whatever and didn’t look back. I think he was an arsehole who made a lot of enemies. Once he was gone, a lot of people suddenly had a grievance to take out on you. Yeah?”

The memories were there all in a rush, of those awful six months with Orion gone. All those bullies who had been made to back off – they wanted payback now. All those boys Orion had been cruel to – they wanted revenge now. Everybody wanted something, from Orion or the arrogant little kid who had been under his protection. Lucius hadn’t had anywhere to turn. They had taken his life apart piece by piece.

“It wasn’t abuse,” was the best he managed.

“It fucking was, Lukey, and yeah, I know, that makes what we just did a bit of a moral nightmare too. I’m not even going to go there but I know what…Christ, kid, I know what people with power do to people without. There was a guy at the home once who…”

Lucius tried to focus on that, anything other than the memory of the cane – the fucking cane, for god’s sake, so Victorian – coming down on his back, out there in the frost on the playing fields. “The home?”

“Children’s Home. You know?”

“Oh. You’re an orphan?”

“Not really. They’re not dead. Just dead to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not half as sorry as I am. Fuck, Lukey, you need better than this.”

“Don’t,” Lucius begged. “Please don’t. Just…I don’t know. Just don’t be nice like that. I can’t bear it.”

There was silence for a moment, then Tom released his arms and began to sponge his back, moving with exquisite care over the tenderness of the scars.

“You’re such a pretty little thing,” he murmured, as though their moment of honesty had never happened.

Lucius closed his eyes and let himself relax, let the world become nothing but cold water, Tom’s hands, and the gentle scrubbing of the sponge. Tom knelt on the slimy floor of the cubicle to sponge the backs of Lucius’s thighs and up over his arse. Lucius’s breath hitched. His toes curled. He could almost feel Tom’s breath on his skin, so close.

“Dangerous,” Tom muttered, and Lucius was not sure whether or not he was meant to hear. “You hard again, Lukey?”

He was. He didn’t even feel humiliated by it. He just wished Tom would stop messing around and bend him over, like Orion would have done. He could brace himself against the wall just here, and alright the slippery floor wasn’t ideal but –

“Sorry, kid,” Tom said, standing up and sliding his arms around Lucius’s waist so that his half-hard cock rubbed gently against the cheeks of his arse. “I don’t exactly carry lube in my schoolbag.”

“You can do it dry,” Lucius offered, pushing himself back and grinding, just slightly.

Tom groaned. “Don’t tempt me. I don’t want to hurt you _that_ bad.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“Doesn’t make it any less of a bad idea.”

For a moment, Tom’s fingers slid along Lucius’s crack, rested over his opening. Lucius’s heart thrummed in his chest, tense and racing as a plucked string. Tom pushed ever so slightly, and withdrew.

“No, I’m not totally insane yet.”

He moved away, even as Lucius sighed in disappointment, and returned to rake his fingers through Lucius’s hair.

“Another time, if you really want to. Fuck, don’t think I’m not into it. It’s just…Jesus, kid, you’ve had enough for now. Honest you have. I don’t think you realise how much of a wreck you look.”

Orion wouldn’t have stopped. Orion wouldn’t have cared about Lucius’s well-being in this infuriating way. So why wouldn’t he rather be with Orion right now?

Carefully, slowly, Tom washed Lucius’s hair for him, smoothing it out, tugging tangles free, running out conditioner till it pooled in scummy puddles at their feet. He gently wrapped his arms around Lucius and held him there, flush against his chest, cradled. One hand slipped up and brushed, just gently, over that piercing again.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Fine. Frustrated.” Lucius pressed himself closer. “Weird. Never been like this before.”

“Honestly, for me neither, though I reckon for slightly different reasons.” Tom kissed him just below his ear, making Lucius shiver. “Bad?”

“No. Definitely not. Look, Tom, I…you don’t have to be nice about it. I get it. You’re not gay and –”

“I’m not what?” Tom sounded appalled. “Did anything about this afternoon seem straight to you?”

That threw Lucius off. Orion had always insisted that he was straight – that they both were. Lucius had known he himself wasn’t, of course, but he had never mentioned it. Orion wouldn’t have liked it. Orion was heterosexual and Lucius was…was a temporary replacement. Didn’t count. Wasn’t real. And Tom had power in the school, had been able to stop a fight in its tracks, had girls in that class wanting any excuse to get close to him…

“You’re gay?”

“I’m bisexual, idiot. Don’t tell me you think you’re straight?”

“Of course not! But…”

“This arsehole Orion again,” Tom guessed. “Fucking you up. Well, I plan to fuck you up in a whole new direction so you can get past the two-men-having-sex-but-it’s-totally-straight part of all this.”

A shiver ran through Lucius. “You want to do this again?”

“Yeah. If you do? I’m not offering you a prison bitch deal here. I’m not going to be your protection – fuck, you don’t need it, I saw you fight.”

“So what are you offering?” Lucius asked, as the last of the warmth left the water and it turned icy on them both. “My service for free?”

There was a long pause before Tom suddenly released him and leaned over to shut the water off.

“Come on. You need to eat something.”

“I…what?”

“You need to eat something. You look exhausted. Running laps, and then that? You definitely need food, and probably a drink of something because the swallowing was awesome but I know it starts to taste so bad after a while.”

Lucius felt unbalanced. “So…what? I don’t…”

Tom pulled him from the cubicle and chucked him his towel. “Get yourself dressed. There’s a café just down from school. Well, not really a café. That might be optimistic. But it’s got food so it’ll do.”

All the while they dried and dressed, Lucius tried to figure out what was going on. His life had taken such violent turns so many times in the past year that he felt he hardly knew what reality was anymore. It was only when he was dressed and ready, hair still clinging damply to his scalp, and Tom snatched his hair gel from him and absolutely refused to give it back that it started to click.

“You look better without it,” Tom pleaded. “You look like a junior solicitor with it all slicked back. Just try it.”

Lucius gave in and Tom leaned over to kiss him, quick and light, a kiss that asked for nothing and sang through Lucius like a violin.

“Is this…” Lucius fumbled for the word. “Is this, like, two guys getting coffee? A….a guys getting coffee…thing?”

Tom stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “Sure. It’s two guys getting coffee. Come on, Lukey. Do you want all of the shitty sausage rolls to have gone by the time we get there?”

Lucius gave up. He gave in. He surrendered, like he always did.

“Okay. I’m coming.”

But all the same, it caught him off guard when Tom grabbed him by the hand.


End file.
